Nine women have been kidnapped, brutalised, killed and dumped on the streets of Ekurhuleni in the last two months. In the last four days, the body count has escalated by five. The possibility of a serial killer is being considered, and serious safety warnings have been issued to women. Local, national and international media outlets are following the story.
It is no wonder, then, that South African women are taking the Ekurhuleni killings very personally. We cannot understand why it took four bodies left in the open to raise the alarm of a possible serial killer. We are traumatised by hearing the details of how each victim was found and what she was wearing. We are horrified that some were too brutalised and too decomposed to identify.
These were young women of character with careers, loving families and – now – mourning children. Why did it take so long to find their bodies? Why was it so easy for their killer to dump them without being caught? Is the safety of women not important enough to keep streetlights working or to cut long grass? Is their wellbeing not worth the effort and expense of maintaining police visibility?
Women contribute to society with care and compassion; we nurture our families; we are expected to hold our communities together in many ways. Yet, when it comes to gender-based violence, we are on our own. As the ACDP has been saying for years, the South African conviction rate for rape and murder is under 10%! For years we have fought against bail for rape and murder. We have advocated for forensic laboratories that work. We have spoken out against the DNA backlog, which is now sitting at over 170 000 DNA samples.
Sadly, it is not the killers who are in prison, but ordinary women, who must live out their days behind bars – avoiding secluded streets, certain types of work and many forms of recreation. Every day, decisions about where to go, how and with whom must be made with safety in mind. Our cities and provinces have not prioritised reliable and affordable public transport that would make our Constitutional right to freedom of movement a reality.
That very same Constitution, however, gives South Africans the right to view pornography – which perverts our marriages, warps the minds of teenage boys and degrades women in general. We are told to appreciate our legal right to kill our unborn children. We are reminded of how far gender equality has brought us. The theoretical possibility of becoming a Cabinet Minister, however, means nothing when we are actually unemployed and cannot even go to a corner shop at night without risking our lives.
It is time to create the kind of South Africa that women deserve. Safe streets and a working justice system are not too much to ask.
